If Jerry Brown's era in Oakland is remembered for his aggressive reclamation of the city's downtown, perhaps Mayor Ron Dellums' tenure will be defined for his programs aimed at human reclamation.

That certainly seems to be the direction the new mayor is heading after two months in office and a year of campaign pledges.

In one of Dellums' first public pronouncements since taking office in January, he told a group of Oakland hills residents last week that he plans to direct the city council to consider altering the application form for some city jobs to avoid questions about past criminal histories.

In other words, Dellums wants to remove the question of felony convictions from the city's job application process.

He's already done some of the legwork.

Soon after he took office, Dellums visited San Quentin State Prison, met with warden Robert Ayers Jr. and heard him describe a plan to provide soon-to-be-released inmates with job training and counseling skills in preparation for the world beyond the confines of prison.

The warden told Dellums the state had to end the practice of releasing inmates when their sentence is served with $200 in their hand, saying "sink or swim."

When Dellums heard the plan, he leaped at the idea because it falls right in line with his agenda to find "new and creative" ways to address violent crime in Oakland.

"It's where our self-interests converge," Dellums said in an interview Monday. "The warden wants to reduce recidivism, and as mayor I want safe and secure communities."

Dellums has directed city staff to put together a pool of appropriate city jobs that could be offered to ex-cons and use the program as an example to encourage the private sector to follow suit.

"I believe the role of government is to lead, set the example, show the way," he said. "And how can we ask the private sector to do something that we are unwilling to do ourselves?

"A big part of the (crime) equation in Oakland is ex-offenders returning to the community with no skills -- and when the $200 is gone, what's the alternative?" Dellums said.

Dellums' plan is also a rare but tangible example of his much-repeated, often-misunderstood call for a holistic community response to violence and crime.

Such details are not easy to come by in the Dellums administration because in many ways, he is the last of the strong, silent types across the landscape of American politics.

What is normal -- and expected -- from most politicians these days is to convene news conferences to crow about their latest proposal or unveil a community success. But such sideshows have historically been anathema to Dellums, a career Beltway politician who spent 28 years representing the 9th District in Congress.

While others have schemed of ways to attract a news crew, Dellums has maintained a low profile with the press, even as he has remained exceedingly popular among his constituents and liberal causes.

It also seems fair to say that Dellums will travel a fair amount as mayor. He plans to represent the city as an ambassador abroad, including a trip to China later this month to drum up business for a trade group in Oakland.

Expect him to fly to Washington, D.C., to lobby for Oakland, when necessary, and participate in meetings of the National League of Cities, a group on which he serves as co-chair of the committee on poverty.

He's still adjusting to the requirements of his new job and admits he doesn't know how much of his job will involve traveling beyond Oakland.

But one of the things he is sure about from his days in Congress is that the nation's largest urban areas must band together and speak with a united voice if they ever expect to gain the attention of the federal government.

"The mayors of this country can change the national conversation if we speak with one voice on the critical issues that affect us in urban America because the problems of our cities are the same -- infrastructure issues, declining schools, air quality," he said.

"That's a national conversation. And I'm not volunteering to jump on a plane; I've done that all my life. But if Oakland's concerns require it, then I will do it."

Toward that end, Dellums has asked the office of his protege, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, to provide the city with a list of current federal legislation with any pork earmarked or available to the city or the Bay Area.

His office is also in the process of enlisting a small army of grant and proposal writers from the public sector who will assist the city in preparing applications to the federal government.

That image is reminiscent of the TV commercial where Matthew Lesko, the man in the question-mark jackets, reveals all the government money that is available to the public through an alphabet soup of federal agencies and assistance programs.